SPLC distances itself from #Alexandria shooter, prays for victims (including the one in its Hatewatch file)

First things first, to make it absolutely clear: the person responsible for pulling the trigger at Wednesday morning’s practice session of the Republican congressional baseball team is the shooter himself.

That said, it’s not surprising that Sen. Bernie Sanders wasted no time in disavowing the support of his former volunteer, nor that the Southern Poverty Law Center also wanted to put some distance between itself and James T. Hodgkinson.

Southern Poverty Law Center, which has made quite a lot of hay unfairly accusing right of instigating violence, has to eat crow today. pic.twitter.com/fsaDZBN4kg

Now that Mark Hemingway mentions it, the SPLC has made quite a lot of hay pointing the finger at conservatives for inspiring violence. Here’s SPLC President Richard Cohen — who authored the statement above — telling Joy Reid not two weeks ago that Trump needs to take responsibility for the “virus of hate” he’s unleashed.

RICHARD COHEN OF @SPLCENTER:#Trump needs to take responsibility for virus of hate he's unleashed.

Rep. Steve Scalise, who remained hospitalized Wednesday night and was visited by the president, himself appears throughout the SPLC’s web site and has his own Hatewatch file attached to his alleged speech to a white supremacist group in 2002.

Lame? Perhaps. But according to a report in the New Orleans Times-Picayune, Scalise was booked to speak to the Jefferson Heights Civic Association, whose event was in the same hotel as the European-American Unity and Rights conference but started two-and-a-half hours earlier.

David Duke says he didn't have a relationship with Steve Scalise, but Duke's political advisor did, The Washington… http://t.co/6GsmNc1Rwv